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Louise-Malle: Youth And Conflict (DVD)
Year:
Rating: R
Distributor: Aztec
The Film: 4.5
FILMINK rates DVDs and Blu-rays out of 5
The films of Louis Malle are widely available on DVD. If you don't already own them on DVD, however, then this boxed set would be a reasonable place to start. The set comprises three works under the heading Youth & Conflict. The first is one of Malle's most famous films, Au Revoir Les Enfants. It's a simple but highly effective look at the fate of French Jewish children in the Nazi era. France had an ambivalent relationship to the whole history of that period, with the collaborationists tarnishing the image of the whole nation. Malle doesn't give us a history lesson though. The power of the film is its authentic and plangent recreation of the children's world, and Malle gets heart wrenching performances from his young actors.
Also included is Le Souffle Au Coeur. This shows Malle nudging into territory that is far more personal and sexually provocative. The story about confused teenage desire and the incest taboo has a deliberately troubling confusion of style and theme. It is shot as a gentle, soft-focussed love story, which is so wrong for the subject matter and so right for Malle's artistic purposes. Not quite as provocative is Le Feu Follet, starring the excellent Maurice Ronet as a man caught on the jagged rocks of alcoholism and depression.